SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Yao Defen, believed to be the world's tallest woman, has begun treatment in a Shanghai hospital to rid her of a brain tumor at the root of her gigantism.

Yao, from a poor farming family in eastern China's Anhui province, measures 2.36 meters (7.75 ft), Chinese doctors say. That is 5 cm (2 inches) more than Sandy Allen of the United States, who is currently listed by Guinness World Records as the world's tallest woman.

Yao suffers from a large tumor in the pituitary gland of her brain, which has stimulated her body to release excessive amounts of growth hormone and made her bones weak, doctors say.

"I hope my bones will get better, but I'm worried that they won't be able to cure me," Yao told Reuters on Thursday by telephone from Ruijin Hospital. The hospital is providing her with free care.

"I will never be able to lead a normal life, but I hope I'll be able to take care of myself, buy groceries and cook my own food. Now it makes me too tired."

The 36-year-old woman is now being treated with an inhibitor of growth hormone, her brother Yao Deqing said. She will be examined in the second half of this year, after which the hospital will decide when to conduct surgery.

"She has shown good responses to medicines we used on her tumor, which is expected to shrink by 30 percent when we do the surgery," Ning Guang, vice president of Ruijin Hospital, told the Shanghai Daily.

Yao gained most of her height during childhood, and suffers from medical problems such as an enlarged heart and osteoporosis, a disease in which bones become fragile and more likely to break.

She previously worked with a circus to support herself and her mother, and was only able to receive treatment after her story was broadcast internationally by the Discovery Channel.

Acromegaly ends in death for 34 year old woman...Vegas woman who couldn't stop growing dies at 34Wednesday, January 16, 2013  As a teenager growing up in Las Vegas, Tanya Angus strutted along fashion runways. She was 5 feet 8 inches tall.

But at the time of her death Monday, the 34-year-old Angus stood 7 feet 2 inches and weighed about 400 pounds. She was a victim of a rare disorder called acromegaly that wouldn't let her stop growing. In children the condition is known as gigantism. "'Mom, I don't know why I got it,'" Karen Strutynski recalled her daughter saying. "'But I guess God decided that I could handle it.'" Handle it she did  by appearing on television specials and in the news, and talking about the condition that left her face misshapen and gave her chronic growing pains. Her condition was the result of the release of too much growth hormone caused by a non-cancerous tumor on her pituitary gland.

This photo provided by Tina Valle shows Tanya Angus before contracting her growth disease, in 1999. As a teenager growing up in Las Vegas, Angus strutted along fashion runways. She was 5 feet 8 inches tall. But at the time of her death Jan. 14, 2013, the 34-year-old Angus stood 7 feet 2 inches and weighed about 400 pounds. She was a victim of a rare disorder called acromegaly that wouldn't let her stop growing. In children the condition is known as gigantism.

The disorder affected just about everything for Angus. She couldn't pull even the largest of shirts over her head, because she couldn't fit through the collar. She needed specially made shoes, and jewelers stretched her rings to size 20. "There's nothing made for giants," her mother explained. Some people judged her daughter, Strutynski said, believing she used a wheelchair because she lacked the discipline to keep her weight down. What they didn't know is that she ate one meal a day, and her medications caused her face to swell, her mother said. "People were very cruel until she went into the media," Strutynski said.

After television appearances, Angus became an advocate for those with the disease, corresponding with people from some 60 countries to help them. She saw her mission as helping others get diagnosed before it was too late and the disease got out of control, her mother said. An autopsy is pending, but Strutynski said it appears Angus died after catching a cold and developing a tear in her heart. Her mother plans to keep up Angus' website and continue corresponding with patients struggling to deal with the disease. "We can't let it end. It's just too important," Strutynski said, her voice cracking. "We can't just let it die with Tanya."

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